Clinton: Obama’s Too Liberal
I think he is too. He’s too liberal for national elections, at least if people look at his record by then and not just to his message of undefined hope and undefined change.
Daily Kos and Open Left (and blogs like it) may not like it, but the reality is that the more liberal the Democratic nominee is, the less likely it is that (s)he’ll win. And she’s right that he has a more liberal record than she has.
Of course Kos is right to say that she’s throwing mud to see what sticks. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t right. She is. From a strategic perspective the only question is whether pointing it out will help her win the nomination.
The flip-flopping accusation is one that can stick, however, Obama likes to present himself as honest, principled, etc., but he’s not. He’s just as an opportunist as other politicians, with the difference that he’s highly hypocritical about it.
It’s an interesting phenomenon to see, this thing we call elections. You dislike Obama quite a bit, and like Hillary. Part of it is because Hillary is the closest to a Republican the Democrats have, so you enthusiastically agree that Obama is "too liberal" because you agree he is to liberal, since he’s NOT a conservative. I dislike Hillary, and feel a deep-seated mistrust of her, and of course that shows in my comments as well.
On the other hand this is not the general election, this is the primaries, and Clinton is not talking to the general populace, she’s talking to primary voters. It was pointed out that Hillary had a choice after losing Iowa; she could run on her issues and experience, or she could go negative and try to tear Obama down. Clearly she’s decided to take the second route.
I believe this is a mistake, strategically, though of course I could be wrong. It’s only going to up her negatives, since the reputation of her as a mudslinger is going to be reinforced. The charge "he’s liberal!" sounds like an insult only if YOU ARE A CONSERVATIVE. People trying to decide between Obama and Hillary are not conservatives, they’re likely to be rather liberal leaning, and may not take well to the idea that Hillary considers "liberal" to be an insult.
Most polls show that "electability" is not the highest issue on voters minds, so as a tactic for making primary voters worry about the general election, I doubt it will work. It may push away some of the more moderate voters based on the issues, but I suspect it’ll more probably push MORE voters away from Clinton and her slash-and-burn politics. Her husband just finished complaining about Hillary’s negative press, but it looks like she’s earning it in spades.
Lynx: you know what’s so funny, doesn’t Obama do the exact same thing? Yes, he’s allowed to do it. When Clinton does it, she’s a mudslinger, but when he does it: no problem!
Ahwell.
I think this is a little bit of an oversimplification. The liberalism of the candidate can be a negative or at least has been a negative in the past. John Kerry barely lost to a candidate that I feel is stronger than any of the 2008 Republican contenders. Obama is a significantly stronger candidate than John Kerry in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000, just considering the excitement factor alone. I don’t think Obama is more liberal than Kerry who barely lost in ‘04.
I wonder how their voting records compare at ProjectVoteSmart? Obama is running to the left of Hillary but isn’t a Kucinich or Gravel.
The last chart I saw put his fairly to the left of Clinton, and slightly to the right of Edwards. However, progressive bloggers are touting his record in the State Senate as quite a progressive one.
Here’s a link and some conservative ratings.
Obama is liberal/center left by Senate ratings, but not in comparison to House standards. Obama isn’t as liberal as Pelosi, Kucinich or Patty Murray.
The ratings show Paul and McCain aren’t so conservative. McCain barely ranks ahead of the most conservative Democrat.
http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=3663&sort=rating
National Journal - Composite Conservative Score Rating:
State Office District Name Party Rating
VA U.S. House 6 Robert Goodlatte Republican 94
SC U.S. Senate Jr Jim DeMint Republican 92.5
CA U.S. House 52 Duncan Hunter Republican 84
CO U.S. House 6 Tom Tancredo Republican 73.3
NE U.S. Senate Sr Charles Hagel Republican 72
AZ U.S. Senate Sr John McCain Republican 56.7
NE U.S. Senate Jr E. Benjamin Nelson Democrat 54.7
ME U.S. Senate Sr Olympia Snowe Republican 44.5
TX U.S. House 14 Ronald Paul Republican 39
CT U.S. Senate Jr Joseph Lieberman Independent 32.5
NY U.S. Senate Jr Hillary Clinton Democrat 29.8
DE U.S. Senate Sr Joseph Biden Democrat 22.5
CT U.S. Senate Sr Christopher Dodd Democrat 16
IL U.S. Senate Jr Barack Obama Democrat 14
OH U.S. House 10 Dennis Kucinich Democrat 13
WA U.S. Senate Sr Patty Murray Democrat 10.7
NJ U.S. House 12 Rush Holt Democrat 10
CA U.S. House 8 Nancy Pelosi Democrat 7.7
MA U.S. Senate Sr Edward Kennedy Democrat 6.3
AZ U.S. House 7 Raúl Grijalva Democrat 3.8
CA U.S. House 33 Diane Watson Democrat 2.3
Ben Nelson is VERY conservative, though, Rudi. Definitely a DINO.
Those ratings are only useful as a starting point anyway- from there you have to find out why some are rated conservative or liberal. For Paul, for example, I presume he came out toward the liberal side because of his antiwar stance. If you look at a purely economic view I imagine he’d look quite conservative. You really can’t boil it all down to a number- and that’s to not even mention the way that majority parties tend to set an agenda that will force the members of the other party to take difficult positions.
Nelson is a conservative Democrat, I wouldn’t use VERY to describe his position. He’s a Liberal compared to Hagel and Demint. The ranking by National Journal is biased by Iraq votes.
TNU.S. House2John DuncanRepublican58.2NCU.S. House3Walter Beaman JonesRepublican46.5These two are only Republican centrists because of Iraq votes. On all other issues McCain is liberal by comparison.
CS - The link I provided is just a composite score. NJ breaks downs votes in multiple categories.
The quoted text is Hillary’s
record.
I really don’t see the point of these kinds of aggregated "scores" for liberal or conservative voting. They seem only relevant for those people too lazy to look into any specific issues and instead want to base their vote only on a semi-arbitrary label. And, frankly, who cares what those kinds of voters think? They are essentially random number generators, anyway.
If they’re only used for a frame of reference, it’s a start. But many pundits and bloggers throw around the "liberal" and "conservative" label without even using PVS, or anything, as a reference. Case in point, liberal bloggers and many pundits jumped on the Hagel as moderate and maverick bandwagon while ignoring his voting record. Even a few conservatives attacked "liberal Hagel" for his Iraq War criticism.